Endoscopic surgery procedures are common in many medical research and practice fields for myriad purposes, for example, to access, diagnose, and treat or excise abnormalities or conditions in interior portions of a patient's body or internal organs that would not be visible or accessible to a surgeon's vision or hands without more extensive or invasive incisions or surgical procedures. An endoscope generally, but not always, comprises some type of rigid or flexible tube, sometimes called a catheter, a light delivery system to illuminate the target object or tissue, a lens system for transmitting images of the target object or tissue through the tube to the viewer, an eyepiece and/or camera, and often one or more additional lumens to accommodate entry of some kind of medical or surgical instrument or manipulator. Some endoscopic instruments include only the surgical instruments disposed in and deployed by an elongated tube (e.g., catheter), but not the optical components, in which case they may be used concurrently with another endoscope that does include optical components. Endoscope and endoscopy as used herein are broader terms that encompass various types of such instruments and procedures, including, but not limited to, laparoscopy, bronchoscopy, colonoscopy, and arthroscopy. Endoscopic procedures are common in myriad types of medical specialties and body organs or cavities, including, for example, the gastrointestinal tract, the respiratory tract, the urinary tract, the ear, the reproductive system, normally closed body cavities via small incisions such as the pelvic cavity, joints, organs of the chest, and others. In some of such procedures, various sized and kinds of pieces of tissues are cut or otherwise separated from the organ or target object of the surgery, and, in others, various kinds of other materials are captured and removed from the organs or target objects in the body. In some procedures, such separated pieces of tissue or other materials can be removed by irrigation and suctioning, but others are removed with instruments that are designed to capture and hold them mechanically as they are removed from the organ or body through or with the endoscopic instrument.
An example of an instrument designed to capture and hold separated pieces of tissue or other materials mechanically in endoscopic procedures for removal from organs or bodies is shown in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/635,700, filed by Rafic Saleh, on Dec. 6, 2006 (Publication No. 2008/0091215 A1), which is incorporated by reference herein for all that it teaches and discloses. Other examples of such instruments are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 6,656,191, issued on Dec. 2, 2003, to T. Ouchi; U.S. Pat. No. 5,643,283, issued on Jul. 1, 1997, to M Younker; U.S. Pat. No. 5,201,740, issued on Apr. 13, 1993, to N. Nakao; U.S. Pat. No. 5,201,740, issued on Mar. 2, 1993, to N. Nakao; U.S. Pat. No. 6,814,739, issued on Nov. 9, 2004, to D Secrest and M. Younker; and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/182,543, filed by N. Nakao on Jul. 15, 2005 (Publication No. 2007/0016224 A1).
The foregoing examples of related art and limitations related therewith are intended to be illustrative and not exclusive, and they do not imply any limitations on the inventions described and claimed herein. Various limitations of the related art will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon reading and understanding of the specification below and of the accompanying drawings.